The Road Not Taken
by everybetty
Summary: “I knew it would only be a matter of time before I did it again.” Response to Chrissie’s Hero Challenge. Nick stretches the definition of hero.


Title: The Road Not Taken

Author: everybetty

Spoilers: AU Season 5, Snakes in particular

Summary: "I knew it would only be a matter of time before I did it again." Response to Chrissie0707's Hero Challenge. Nick stretches the definition of _hero._

I knew it would only be a matter of time before I did it again.

And I was right.

The first time was an impulse. Something from deep within the reptile part of my brain. A rage-driven, primitive, _primordial _need.

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**Cold, flat eyes taunted me from across the interrogation room table. Hands that had done unspeakable things to a child before wrapping themselves around her tiny, pale throat and choking the life from her rag doll body played with the pictures on the table. A fingertip traced _lovingly_ around her porcelain face, swept over blue tinged lips, stroked the violet bruises on her neck and chest.**

**An ember begin to glow in my belly; cold/hot and insistent.**

**His attorney shot a French cuff free from his silk jacket sleeve, knuckle-sized gold nugget link flashing in the sallow light of the lone yellow bulb as buffed-glossy fingernails plucked something offensive free. The previous occupant had been offered a dry ham and cheese and the tabletop was still dusted with stale crumbs. A sticky brown ring remained where a can of Buy-Rite cola had sat.**

**French cuffs bent to whisper in his client's ear. Whatever he said, it had Caldwell's face splitting in a shiver-inducing smile as he rose from the table.**

"**She's a beautiful little girl, Mr. Stokes. I certainly hope you find whoever is responsible for snuffing out the light in her eyes."**

"**Oh, I've found him," I replied evenly. I never even bothered glancing over at Jim. He was letting me have the reins on this one. **

"**Don't even think about leaving town, Mr. Caldwell."**

**His attorney cracked a yellowed shark's smile. "My client is free to travel wherever he chooses."**

"**Don't worry, Mr. Stokes. I'm not going anywhere. I like Vegas. Vegas has been very good to me the last few years."**

**Caldwell's eyes never wavered from mine, but his fingers dipped back down to the table to caress the photo again. "Very good."**

**Then his lawyer was practically pushing him out of the room, Jim following closely behind them, leaving me alone in the room with all that remained of little Jackie Anderson and the reek of Acqua Di Gio. Figures it'd be Armani. **

**I shoved the photos into their folder and got up to head out, not really sure at the time what I was thinking, what I was planning. It was there, somewhere, not recognized, or more likely not admitted. But all I had in mind at that moment was fresh air.**

**I hit the bar on the back door and headed out into the night, strode purposefully into the parking lot and beeped myself into my truck. The Dakota is old, comfortable, and the seat fit me like an old baseball glove. Caved in and worn in all the right places. My head fell back in the divot in the headrest, my finger hit the express down button for the window, and I closed my eyes, replaying the scene from the interview against my lids.**

**From somewhere nearby through my open window I heard the unmistakable metallic _ching_, _snick_, SNAP of a Zippo lighter in use and turned my head on its rest to look out the window. Two shadowy figures stood next to a dark, late model import sedan. There. A firefly in the dark. A poppy orange glow blossomed against the night. A whiff of harsh, sour cigar smoke drifted over on a light breeze.**

**Doc Robbins' voice echoed in my head. _"The burns to her thighs, genitals, and torso were pre-mortem, I'm afraid. __The size would be suggestive of something larger in diameter than a cigarette, a cigar more likely."_**

**The two figures exchanged a few more words, Caldwell laughing easily at a small joke. Then the lawyer got into the sedan and Caldwell walked over to his van, the door creaking open and needing to be slammed shut behind him.**

**What purpose could a multimillionaire have for an unmarked, rusted out conversion van? Sara, Warrick and I had gone over every millimeter of the vehicle. No warrant; Caldwell had offered it up free and clear. And we found nothing. Not a single speck of anything to tell us Jackie Anderson or any other of his suspected victims had been in that van.**

**The rust bucket fired up with a fan belt screech and the tailpipe belched out a gout of thick black smoke. Caldwell shifted into drive and pulled out of the parking lot, flicking on his lights as he hit the main road.**

**Unthinking. On autopilot. Hearing the voice inside my head expressing gratitude that the van's muffler was just as rusty as the vehicle it was attached to, I turned the truck's engine over and followed the van into the night.**

**Down Westfall to Concordia. Down the back roads that ran behind the Strip, past titty bars and the cheapie casinos. **

**Once out of the commercial zone I fell back, keeping the twin red beacons of the van's taillights barely in view. My heart lurched as the Dakota came over a ridge, my target gone from sight, then I caught a glint of moonlight off the spotted chrome of its bumper, turning off right into a residential subdivision.**

**I continued on past a few hundred feet, then cut my lights off, made a sloppy three-point turn and entered behind what I now recognized as my quarry. **

**There were plenty of streetlights here, dotted every few dozen feet along the cement sidewalk. Cookie-cutter homes on streets with fanciful names like Hollyhock and Ivy Terrace, better suited for different climes. I slowed as I saw the van enter Rosebush Circle, a clump of its namesake flower rising out of the grass and cement center, beauty thriving perversely in the brutal desert heat.**

**The van stopped, idling in front of one of the houses. From around the corner I watched, but Caldwell never moved. I tugged the brim of my black cap down over my forehead.**

**That was when I saw the little pink Huffy leaning against the garage door. White plastic basket set in front of handlebars with pink and purple streamers.**

**The sound of cicadas merged with the white noise buzzing in my brain. **

**The next thing I knew I was standing outside Caldwell's van, my breath harsh in my ears, certain it was loud enough for the sleeping occupants of the house to hear.**

**Subconsciously, I must have know what I'd planned all along as I had already snapped on a set of latex gloves, something I didn't even notice until I saw my hand on the door handle. **

**I dragged Caldwell out of the drivers seat, an arm around his neck and my hand held firmly in place over his mouth. **

"**Not so strong when it's not little girls, huh, Caldwell?" I practically spat into his ear. **

**His eyes widened, beginning to bug out as he dragged air through his nose. My grip tightened and my hand began pulling to the right, my other hand braced around his front.**

**I could feel his chest heaving under my arm, his fingers tearing ineffectually at my heavy black denim jacket. **

**Was this why I found myself at the gym, normal healthy routine jacked up to forgoing cardio for more sets with the free weights? Finding my pancake breakfasts being replaced by protein shakes and egg white omelets. Killing time doing pushups and crunches instead of Playstation and journals. A buddy at the gym had even offered me some of his anabolics and I'd held my hand out for them, so help me God. A last second realization that I'd be screwed if called upon to piss in a cup I withdrew my hand and returned to the workout area for another hour of reps.**

**Was it all leading up to this?**

**Was this all some metamorphosis? And what was I changing into?**

**I felt my grip slacken, was readying to let Caldwell go and damn the consequences when two separate but equally momentous things happened. My eyes looked over Caldwell's shoulder and landed on the bike. His next victim lay somewhere inside, swaddled in Barbie sheets, surrounded by Crayola pictures of her family and Dr. Seuss books.**

**At the same time my hand brushed over his shirt pocket and I felt the object within as I heard the crinkle of the dried leaf the cigar was wrapped in.**

**The ember within my belly flared white hot and a switch flipped and I recognized it and embraced it and found myself grinning at the night as my hand slipped from Caldwell's mouth to his chin, ripping his head to the right with every bit of newly built strength I had gained and I had to stifle the laugh that threatened to burst from my lips as I heard his neck snap at the C2-C3 juncture. **

**I piled him back into his still idling van, shutting the door slowly to minimize the creak, latching it shut with a shove of my hip rather than a slam.**

**I checked out the arms of my jacket. Completely intact, the tough fibers immune to his manicured nails. I made a quick survey of the neighborhood. Not a light to be seen on in any of the little homes; my all-black ensemble and hat would make any identification impossible.**

**The license plate on my truck would be a concern, but the next time…and sweet Jesus, I was already thinking there would be a next time. **

**I pulled away, lights still off on the truck, and headed back into town. I ordered three dinners, burgers for me and Rick, Boca Burger for Sara, fries for everyone, and when I noticed the girl behind the counter was a. flirting with me and b. not wearing a watch I managed to drop the time casually into the conversation, conveniently setting her mental clock back a half hour. I was already finessing myself an alibi.**

**I opened up the bags and placed them under the air vent in the truck, blasting the A/C on them to cool the food down. I returned to the lab bearing cold food with a story of stopping to help change a tire, hastily applied grime from my own tire applied to my cheek. **

**Sara said veggie burgers tasted just fine cold and dropped her fries in the garbage, headed off to the snack machine to feed her need for greasy carbs with an eventual purchase of a bag of Fritos.**

**Rick cocked his head and gave me a look. "Was she at least hot?"**

"**Who?"**

"**The flat tire. Was she hot?"**

**I laughed. "Why does it matter?"**

"**Cuz if you're gonna ruin my dinner to play hero for some damsel in distress, I wanna at least know she was worth it."**

"**Wasn't playin' hero, Rick. Just doin' my part."**

**He took in my smile, the ease in my stance. "Yeah. She was hot."**

**I didn't tell him any differently. And that morning I listened to the news on the radio on my drive home. Real estate developer Howard Caldwell had been found murdered. There were no witnesses and no suspects. **

**I slept eleven hours, rising in the early evening to don workout clothes and head back to the gym. The news update advised that when Mrs. Caldwell had started up her late husband's computer to begin setting his finances in order she found the detailed and sordid history of all the girls he had murdered, starting back in the Lake Zurich area when they had lived in the Chicago suburb before moving to Vegas three years ago, through and including Jackie Anderson. Later it would be revealed that the last name in his files belonged to that of a girl that lived in the house on Rosebush Circle.**

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I'm sitting outside the club, waiting for Rafael Salinas to finish his performance. Three weeks before, we had arrested Juanito Concha for the murder of Veronica Juarez. I was satisfied we had the right guy, hearing the freak sing his confession to me and Sam pretty much sealing things up.

But Salinas … he may not have been the man behind the wheel but he had blood on his hands all the same. I had purchased a few of Extremo's bootleg CDs and transcribed the lyrics. The words to the narcocorridos on them described, in detail, the brutal murders of half a dozen men and women on the east side over the last few years. When I checked the files I found most of them had been closed as John and Jane Does, no one coming forward to ID the undocumented Mexicans. They were all buried in the city bone yard, not even a cement slab to mark their graves.

I'd been keeping an ear to the ground, hearing reports from the Gang Unit and Sam that Salinas and his Cowboys had been tussling for drug turf with the MS-13s that had recently moved in. The Mara Salvatrucha had moved up from El Salvador, across the border into California and recently into Vegas. They were known to be savage killers, and Salinas had rattled their cages.

I wasn't willing to wait to see if the 13's would take out Salinas. But they would make a convenient patsy.

Because I'm getting good at this.


End file.
